Watch Ex-Blizzard Dev Jeff Kaplan Trying Not to Get Himself Canceled Talking about His Cowboy Game

"We're cheap and poor," he says, but if it gets the game a higher Metacritic score, he might add deer ticks (and maybe even do something about horse nuggets).

Kintsugiyama

Overwatch fans of back in the day know Jeff Kaplan as the game director who brought them news – a true Blizzard frontman who left the company in 2021 and opened his own, Kintsugiyama, to work on The Legend of California, an open-world first-person shooter.

Now, we can learn more about it from his interview with MinnMax's Leo Vader, where he answered 213 questions and tried not to get canceled.

Here are some of the most iconic quotes from the video that are almost enough to summarize the whole experience:

"We're cheap and poor"
"I'm a Rust player, so I like destroying other people's stuff"
"If you want to roleplay the world's oldest profession, then we encourage you to"
"Yes, players will find an amount of gold that will make them say, 'Yeehaw'"
"What is the horse's ball size and is it dynamic?"
"Live-service has a bad connotation, so I'll act like it's not live-service for now"
"If that gets us a higher Metacritic score, yes, we'll have deer ticks"
"We really want to do horse breeding"

Jokes aside, if you want to learn more about this cowboy game, you should definitely watch the whole thing.

Kaplan explained that The Legend of California is a sandbox shooter with survival elements, but not an MMO or a simulator. You can build your home only in certain zones, unfortunately, but you can get your own mine. And no, you can't destroy other players' buildings despite Kaplan's love for Rust, and "you cannot build a wall to trap other players, unfortunately." Yes, Jeff, unfortunately.

You start with a spear but will be able to craft a bolt-action rifle eventually and even an airship.

But don't get too attached: server resets will happen every month, changing interest points and your ranch progression but saving unlocks. Each server allows for 100 players, and there's PvP unless you set the server to PvE-only.

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Alas, you can't grow crops or breed horses yet, but perhaps one day... And no, you can't look at your horse's nuggets.

Surprisingly, Kaplan wants to raise expectations for the game: "Have high expectations and then hold us to hitting those. We want to make something amazing."

The Legend of California is set to enter early access on PC this year, so wishlist it and don't forget to subscribe to our Newsletter, join our 80 Level Talent platform and Discord, and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Instagram, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.

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